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LightSquared owner: Grassley twisted facts in bribe charge

Grassley has been a leading Capitol Hill critic of LightSquared. | AP Photo

A week after the phone call in question between Ruelle and Grassley’s office, “LightSquared personnel received a call from a reporter at Bloomberg News with information that your staff had contacted him with a story related to an alleged quid pro quo involving a purported request that you drop the investigation of LightSquared in exchange for a call center in Iowa,” Paoletta wrote.

Grassley’s staff at the time had never mentioned such an allegation to Bopp, Paoletta added.

The email trail from Jan. 6, the day of the phone call in question, reveals that Ruelle defended his call center comment as an innocuous response to the staffer’s statement.

The LightSquared letter also pointed out that a Grassley staffer followed up with Ruelle shortly after he allegedly pitched the illicit deal.

Paoletta, referring to his earlier stint working for the House Energy and Commerce Committee, wrote: “As a chief investigative counsel for a congressional committee for 10 years, I would have terminated immediately any conversation in which a bribe was offered, or even hinted at; I certainly would not have sent an email thanking that person for such a call and attempting to set up another meeting.”

Later in the letter, Paoletta clarified that Ruelle is an acquaintance of Falcone’s but was never authorized to act on behalf of the company, nor was he paid to do so.

Falcone, in an email response to Grassley, characterized Ruelle as one of many people trying to give him advice on the situation. The hedge fund magnate firmly denied encouraging Ruelle formally or informally to reach out to Grassley’s office on his behalf, however.

“I absolutely did not direct him to call you or anyone in your office,” Falcone wrote in an email to Grassley. “I don’t control what he does or who he does it with because he doesn’t work for me.”

Falcone did acknowledge that Ruelle helped to coordinate an interview for him with Fox News. Grassley had pointed to that help as evidence of a link between Falcone and Ruelle.

But Falcone said there’s nothing more to read into it.

Further, Falcone defended his comments about creating a “win-win” situation for the senator as straightforward and good public policy. Paoletta claims that Grassley’s office cherry-picked a line from an ongoing conversation Falcone had been having with the senator’s office to distort the meaning.

“I’m a supporter of the senator and I’m shocked that he would defame a private citizen,” Ruelle said, lamenting that federal laws immunizing public officials leave him little recourse.

This article first appeared on POLITICO Pro at 10:08 a.m. on February 1, 2012.

CLARIFICATION: This article has been updated to reflect that attorney Mark Paoletta wrote a letter to Sen. Chuck Grassley on behalf of Harbinger Capital, the hedge fund that is the majority owner of LightSquared.

I don't know what the first poster is talking about, this isn't a green venture and has nothing to do with Obama, some people should learn to read. But I trust Grassley, he's exposed fraud and corruption in pharmaceutical companies and a numbers of others throughout his career. He seems to always dig out the corruption and do his best to expose it. He's one of the few senators that I at least somewhat respect.

Taking TaxPayer dollars and squandering it and funneling it back to Obama is NOT.....twisting the facts...and that is exactly what has happened in all of these GREEN failures...

She doesn't care about that. President Obama isn't even mentioned in the article, nor is it about a "green" technology, but she (if it really is a she), just want to launch an ad hominem attack on the President to take 'the stink' off of Grassley's attempted shakedown of LightSquared.

So to be clear, Ruelle did send the letter to Grassely's office asking for punches to be pulled, and Ruelle is at the center of the Lightsquared fiasco, and Ruelle did mention a call center in Grasseley's state, and Falcone has been evasive about Ruelle's relationship with Lightsquared and Harbinger.

Got it. He works with Falcone just not for Falcone.

Falcones is just mad that a Repubican isn't playing ball with him the way the Obama team does. You steer a couple hundred million my way, I get you a couple million in campaign donations, or a call center for your state.

Looks like Sen. Grassley tried to shake down LightSquared and it failed....so now he's on the attack to defend what's left of his 'reputation'.

Falcone, who's company Harbinger all but owns lightsquared is an Obama bundler from way back that was pushing a deal that would have created a huge 4G wholesale cellular carrier problem is that the frequencys they bought were never intended for cell service and they blocked/interferred with GPS signals needed by the airlines, military, search and rescue and everyone with a smartphone. Falcone got his buddies in the O white house to sign off on it, only the others that needed to sign off (Air Force General, and Grassely) didn't play ball. Now you are defending them?

It's about BROADBAND and GPS AND IT ENDANGERS OUR MILITARY.....and my point....was it's no different then the GREEN ventures Obama has managed to bumble...and squander..

ANYTHING THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION HAS THEIR HANDS IN....GOES TO THE SH$TTER...

The Obama administration pressured an Air Force general to alter his testimony in order to downplay the havoc the company’s signals could wreak on military GPS systems. We knew that some of President Obama’s donors are invested in LightSquared. What we didn’t know (or at least I didn’t) is that Obama himself was a LightSquared investor. But don’t take my word for it, this was published at the Huffington Post, hardly a news outlet that should fear being referred to Attack Watch.

Obama himself was an early investor and came to the presidency a firm believer in expanding broadband. He remains close to other early investors, like Gips and investment manager George W. Haywood, inviting some to luxe social events at the White House and more intimate gatherings like a night of poker and beer.

…

Obama installed one of his biggest fundraisers, Julius Genachowski, a campaign “bundler” and broadband cheerleader, as chairman of the FCC, whose staff granted LightSquared a special waiver to operate.

Well, isn’t that interesting? Bending the rules to enrich his friends and donors, and himself personally, at the expense of unsuspecting travelers and the United States military! But not to worry, LightSquared officials tell us no government officials stand to benefit financially. But since their books are closed I guess we just have to take them at their word.

Might also be time to get Philip Falcone to also TALK. After all he is another of Obama's cronies that likes to FUNNEL MONIES... THESE ARE THINGS YOU GET FROM MOST TRANSPARENT ADMINISTRATION EVER.....lies, deceit and criminal activity....money laundering....... GO GET THEM GRASSLEY AND ISSA......AMERICAN TAXPAYERS ARE BEHIND YOUR EFFORTS 100%

Here's the bottom line with Lightsquared. If you like using the GPS in you phone and/or car, you better hope these guys are made to change the way they want to do things. Reason? The wattage from the transmitters they want to use will fry your phone GPS, as well as the one in your car. It'll interfere with GPS signals that aircraft use to land. It'll interfere with military GPS operations.

Currently, Lightsquared claims to have a .25 cent fix for this that everyone not on Lightsquares frequency will have to purchase and install so Lightsquareds operations won't interfere with an already established system. Funny, I would think it would be incumbent on the new guys to make sure THEY don't interfere with other operations. But, this is Washington. Specifically, Barack Obama's Washington, were such "minor" details don't matter because Hopey One wants EVERYBOOOOOOODY to have the internet so that everything is faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaair. Nevermind that it'll jack up a lot of other operations, all that matters is that everyone has a faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaair shot to get online.

Typical Obama operation. Say "Make it so" with no real world concept of how to make it actually happen, and then blame someone else when real world consequences **** everyone off